Holy social media!

Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Cuba is expected to be a big event on Facebook, Twitter

March 23, 2012|By Johnny Diaz, Sun Sentinel

Pope John Paul II's 1998 visit to Cuba was a huge media event. Monday's visit by Pope Benedict XVI will be a social media affair.

Blogs, Facebook and Twitter will play a big role this time around, helping fill in news coverage in real-time for faithful followers. Facebook pages and Twitter handles such as @popevisit and @papacuba are already circulating, creating online chatter about Benedict's visit.

"I can only imagine how many will be connected now, with all the new forms of media we use,'' the Rev. Alberto Cutie said in an email. Best known as Padre Alberto from TV and radio, Cutie plans to follow the papal visit via Twitter, where he'll also update his 16,000 followers through his handle @padrealberto.

"I already see all kinds of opinions being expressed on Twitter," Cutie said.

Robert Thompson, a TV professor at Syracuse University, said Benedict's Cuba visit lends itself to being more of an interactive and cross-platform event than the previous papal visit.

In the digital era, when people have smartphones, tablets and computers, "everyone has the virtual ability to take what they record and put it up on an international distribution system. You have essentially armed a large percentage of the population with eyewitness reportage tools.''

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba has also set up a website with links to Facebook and Twitter accounts such as @benedictocuba to supplement the country's state-controlled TV and print media. The sites provide background information and photos of the Vatican and the previous papal visit, as well as preparations for next week's trip.

Benedict's visit coincides with the 400th anniversary of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, Cuba's patron saint. He will celebrate with outdoor masses beginning Monday in the city of Santiago de Cuba and concluding with a mass Wednesday morning at Revolution Square in Havana.

About 200 students at Little Flower Catholic School in Hollywood will witness it virtually. The school has electronic whiteboards in its classrooms, where a wireless projector will broadcast the Wednesday morning mass.

"We wanted the children to see it in real time, because that's what they are used to now — everything instant,'' Principal Maureen McNulty said. She expects some of her older students will chat about the Mass at home on Facebook. "In our new century, I wanted to make sure that our students have that connection and see what's going on."

TV stations will also augment their coverage with strong social media efforts.

WPLG-Ch. 10, South Florida's only English-language station in Cuba, dispatched a six-person crew that includes anchors Calvin Hughes and Jen Herrera, who will be blogging, posting on Facebook and sending Tweets using hashtag #local10popeincuba.

Because the Cuban government controls the Internet on the island, WPLG is emailing blog entries and Twitter updates to its Pembroke Park studios, where staffers are updating their posts. Reporters are accessing Facebook from their hotel.

"We know this is an important event. That is why we have worked so hard to get members of our news team to Cuba,'' Dave Boylan, WPLG's general manager, said in an email. The station will also stream all the Masses live on the station's website, local10.com.

The Spanish-language network Telemundo Media sent a five-person crew to Cuba. Its digital campaign includes Twitter updates @telemundonews and photos by reporter Rogelio Mora-Tagle, who's traveling in the pope's airplane.

"For Telemundo, social media goes beyond channeling content and is mostly about the conversation we can have directly with the audience, and the way we can connect them with what's happening in Guanajuato [Mexico] or Santiago de Cuba when Pope Benedict visits,'' Camilo Pino, a Telemundo spokesman, said in an email.

Univision Communciations will also have correspondents in Cuba, where they'll provide updates on the network's Facebook page and on Twitter using the hashtag #papaunivision.

But Cubans on the island have limited access to the Internet — a topic of discussion last week in Washington, D.C., on how the Web could embolden the Cuban people.

At the event, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, said, "Provide them access to the Internet and the Internet will take care of everything else."

Yoani Sanchez, a Cuba-based blogger with 230,000 Twitter followers, said in a recent interview that she and others will use their limited Internet access to report about the current conditions in Cuba during the pope's visit.

"It's a good opportunity to show them the real Cuba; to report what is actually happening,'' she said last week on Voice of America. "We will become a showcase where activists, bloggers and Twitter users have the responsibility to show the real side of the country and not the official one."

That's one of the reasons Nelson Perez, of Miami Lakes, will not only watch TV coverage of the papal visit but follow news links and postings by friends on social media.